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Once again the power of a crowd of gumshoes is poised to trump the prerogative of a single, skulking U.S. senator to stop the people's business with a "secret hold."

A collective project of open-government advocates (including journalists) are putting their information together to out the anonymous senator who killed a whistleblower protection bill in the final hours of the last Congress.

You can help this project by calling your senators — and others if you want — and asking whether they were the one that killed the bill (S 372). Record your findings or track progress in tracking the Shy Senator to his/her lair here.

The bill, a watered-down version of one earlier passed by the Senate, had passed the House December 22, 2010, without objection. But a single anonymous objection kept it from being passed by the Senate in the final hours before adjournment.